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Ontario’s health minister says he’s open to some form of inquiry into the deaths of eights seniors murdered at Southwestern Ontario nursing homes, but not until the court case against the ex-nurse who killed them is over.

Struggling in the polls, the next election just a year away, the ruling Liberals could have qualms about growing calls for an inquiry into the deaths and conditions in Ontario’s long-term care homes after the province’s auditor general criticized their oversight of the system in a report 18 months ago.

But one veteran Queen’s Park watcher said the Liberals could put off a wider investigation until after the June 2018 election, sidestepping the intense scrutiny an inquiry — they can last months — would put the government under in an election year.

“The government can say it’s setting up an inquiry, but I can guarantee you it won’t be done before the next election,” said Peter Woolstencroft, a political scientist retired from the University of Waterloo.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins declined an interview request Friday, but in a statement said he and Premier Kathleen Wynne believe it’s too early yet to make a decision about an inquiry.

“Both her and I have indicated our openness to whatever form that might take. However, we’re still in the middle of a court process today,” Hoskins wrote in a emailed statement.

“But today, particularly given the amount of information that’s coming out . . . and the no doubt devastating impact it’s having on an entire community, including obviously the families. That’s where my thoughts are today: To support and express condolences and sympathy for the families and communities.”

Confessed serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer, who murdered eight Southwestern Ontario nursing home residents in her care, watches her police confession video in court Thursday in Woodstock, Ont., where the former nurse pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges. Besides the first-degree murder charges, she also pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and two of aggravated assault involving others in her care. (Charles Vincent/Special to The London Free Press)

Thursday, Wettlaufer, 49, pleaded guilty to killing eight residents of two nursing homes in Woodstock and London, and to the attempted murder of four other vulnerable people, all but one of them seniors, and aggravated assault against two elderly sisters.

All the victims were in the care of Wettlaufer, who poisoned those she killed over seven years, from 2007 to 2014, with doses of insulin.

In the fallout of her pleas in a Woodstock court, groups representing older and vulnerable Canadians, including the Canadian Association of Retired Person and Elder Abuse Ontario, called for some form of inquiry into nursing home conditions or agreed the murder spree justifies one.

Without an inquiry, “we haven’t done justice to the lives lost,” Doris Grinspun, head of RNAO, said from a conference in Spain.

“What we want are answers — what could have been done to prevent this and so we are never again confronted with such a horrible situation.”

Jeff Yurek, health critic for the opposition Progressive Conservatives at Queen’s Park, was unavailable for comment. But the party’s long-term care critic, calling the Wettlaufer case “an isolated circumstance,” said the Tories believe an inquiry now isn’t needed.

“This is something that should have never happened and nobody should have to go through that,” said Bill Walker, an Owen Sound-area MPP.

“(But) I don’t think we need (an inquiry) at this point — when it was one person and very premeditated. I’m not certain we want to go there — I think we are better off taking a look at the what the courts and police come up with.”

With her guilty pleas, Wettlaufer faces a life prison sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. The case returns to court later this month.

An inquiry could be a solution to questions raised by the case, said London MPP Teresa Armstrong, the NDP’s long-term care and seniors’ affairs critic, “I’m very shaken that those things could happen and had been left undetected for so long,” the London-Fanshawe MPP said. “People want answers — that’s one option. Sometimes, when a crisis happens you, need to step back and see what we need to take action on.”

Armstrong is introducing a private member’s bill this fall that, if passed, would see an all-party committee travel Ontario “to talk about the issues of long-term care in one forum,” including understaffing and the extent of service and support for patients.

The NDP also wants long-term care to be added to the oversight turf of Ontario’s Ombudsman, the province’s top citizen watchdog.

With nearly 78,000 people living in more than 600 facilities, Ontario has more long-term care facilities than any other province.

In late 2015, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found a backlog of home inspections for complaints and so-called ‘critical incidents’ — things that include neglect or abuse of residents, improper care or unexpected deaths — had doubled over 15 months.

Two years earlier, the government was found breaking its own nursing-home inspection law, to which the ministry in charge responded by hiring an extra 100 inspectors and completing comprehensive inspections of all the facilities.

The unusual circumstances of the Wettlaufer case warrant some sort of inquiry, Woolstencroft said.

“How was this woman allowed to get employment after she was released for making medical errors? And how many murders happened under her watch and nobody said, ‘What’s going on here?’” he asked.

Redacted court documents released in March indicated Wettlaufer was fired in 2014 from Caressant Care in Woodstock after being accused of making repeated medication-related errors. Her dismissal came days after the last suspicious death at the home, where seven of the eight murder victims lived.

The other victim had lived at Meadow Park Long-Term Care in London.

Wettlaufer surrendered her nursing licence last September.

The Ontario legislature recessed for the summer this week, with MPPs not expected to return until Sept. 11.